CISS and BU Spark! Invite Applications for Data Science & Computational Support
The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) has generously provided funds to support an experiential learning initiative for undergraduate students to apply data science and computational skills to studying and building solutions to social problems. The Center for Innovation in Social Science (CISS) will partner with BU Spark! to match 3-5 faculty research projects with undergraduate technical teams who will apply data science and computational skills to the project. CISS and BU Spark! will provide a shared cohort experience and technical mentoring for the interns. The undergraduate Spark! teams will carry out the faculty research and participate in the mentored program between January through August 2023 (Spring and Summer ‘23 terms). Faculty applicants should specify whether they are seeking a student team for Spring ‘23, Summer ‘23, or both).
The faculty member is responsible primarily for providing the vision and describing the scope and project aims to be carried out. Projects focused on sustainability, health, social inequality, and criminal justice are especially encouraged. Funded faculty applicants will consult with BU Spark! and receive regular updates as the research is carried out. Examples of recent BU Spark! projects in the social sciences include:
- Converting, cleaning, and analyzing more than 1,500 PDFs of grievances filed by Massachusetts prisoners between 2018-2021.This database was used to understand whether and how prison officials address grievances alleging mistreatment behind bars, from excessive force to racism to harassment.
- Scraping data from more than 1,000 online Go Fund Me campaigns from 2017 to 2020 and applying text analysis programs to understand whether particular framing messages are more effective in raising funds to help family members who lost a loved one to opioid addiction. Analyses focused on whether pleas framing addiction as a “medical” or “moral” issue are more effective in fundraising.
Project tasks can include the following computing and data science applications:
- Data science: data collection (e.g. web scraping, Application Programming Interface (APIs), merging datasets, converting data from various formats), data cleaning, analysis, etc.
- Machine learning: supervised or unsupervised learning, computer vision, natural language processing, etc.
- Web and mobile app development and user experience design.
Applications for faculty member projects should be submitted here. Applications are due December 1, 2022. Faculty, full-time lecturers, and postdoctoral fellows are eligible to apply. Doctoral candidates are eligible, with a letter of support from their dissertation advisor. Applications will be reviewed by CISS and BU Spark! leadership and evaluated on the basis of: (a) clarity of research goals; (b) clear articulation of desired project deliverables; (c ) project aims that are a strong fit with current student intern interests and skills. Student intern time expectations will vary depending upon the project but will be approximately 10-15 hours per week during the Spring semester and up to 20 hours per week during Summer.
CISS director Deborah Carr and BU Spark! Director Ziba Cranmer will host an informational and Q&A session on Thursday November 17 from 4-5 pm. We will provide examples of the types of projects that social scientists bring to BU Spark!, the specific tasks carried out by student teams, and suggestions on how to structure a successful application. The session also will feature remarks from Thao P. Nguyen, a PhD candidate in Sociology, CISS graduate affiliate, and UX Design Program Manager at BU Spark! Please register for this Zoom session here. Potential applicants who would like to consult with a BU Spark! representative about their project and its feasibility are invited to reach out to Associate Program Manager (Savannah Majarwitz) at smajarwi@bu.edu.
To learn more about BU Spark!, click here.